Sociable Solitude: The Early Modern Hermitage as Proto-Museum

This chapter discusses the development of the early modern hermitage, as a locus for solitary prayer, aimed at ecclesiastics and monks in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, into a place for sociable retreat and the discussion of the arts and culture. This came about through a conflation of the monastic space with the classical example of the 'diaeta', a pavillion usually part of Roman villas, that were described by Pliny the Younger. During the seventeenth century this new, hybrid space acquired a particular flavor of leisure and freedom from increasing social constraints. As a result, it offered an ideal location for the disinterested consideration of art – thus laying the basis for the etiquette of museum visitors. The end point of this ealy modern development can be discerned in the Hermitage that was built for Catherine the Great, which was both a location for the display of art, and the social activity of discussing aesthetics.